Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination (Topic: Bioethanol)

Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

National Recruitment Agency

The government has set targets of 10 per cent bioethanol blending of petrol by 2022 and to raise it to 20 per cent by 2030 under the ethanol blending programme to curb carbon emissions and reduce India’s dependence on imported crude oil.
1G and 2G bioethanol plants are set to play a key role in making bioethanol available for blending but face challenges in attracting investments from the private sector.

1G bioethanol plants utilise sugarcane juice and molasses, by-products in the production of sugar, as raw material, while 2G plants utilise surplus biomass and agricultural waste to produce bioethanol.
Currently, domestic production of bioethanol is not sufficient to meet the demand for bio-ethanol for blending with petrol at Indian Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs).
Sugar mills, which are the key domestic suppliers of bio-ethanol to OMCs, were only able to supply 1.9 billion litres of bio-ethanol to OMCs equating to 57.6 per cent of the total demand of 3.3 billion litres.
Many sugar mills which are best placed to produce bioethanol do not have the financial stability to invest in biofuel plants and there are also concerns among investors on the uncertainty o the price of bio-ethanol in the future.
The prices of both sugarcane and bio-ethanol are set by the central government.
Producing ethanol from sugarcane juice instead of molasses can help India meet its nutrition requirements and make resources like land and water more sustainable.
India’s biofuel policy only recently allowed the use of sugarcane juice in ethanol production, in addition to molasses.

Ethanol, an anhydrous ethyl alcohol having chemical formula of C2H5OH, can be produced from sugarcane, maize, wheat, etc. which are having high starch content.
In India, ethanol is mainly produced from sugarcane molasses by fermentation process. Ethanol can be mixed with gasoline to form different blends.
As the ethanol molecule contains oxygen, it allows the engine to more completely combust the fuel, resulting in fewer emissions and thereby reducing the occurrence of environmental pollution.
Since ethanol is produced from plants that harness the power of the Sun, ethanol is also considered as renewable fuel.
If molasses are used to meet the given target – requiring a production of 20 billion litres (bl) of bioethanol – it would require additional water and land resources, nearly four times more than the current, and would result in production of extra sugar of 161 mt.
Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme was launched in January, 2003.
Ethanol has also been blessed with a low GST and enjoys relaxed conditions for interstate movement if used for blending with petrol.

Sugarcane cultivation — which benefitted from entrenched policies that incentivised production for decades — uses up more land and water, and, thus, reduces the use of these resources for foods that are rich in micro-nutrients.
Institutionalised political interests in sugar production have threatened the country’s food, water and energy security over time.
In 2009, the National Policy on Biofuels stressed on the use of non-food resources to avoid a possible conflict between food and fuel.
In 2018, the government modified its 2009 policy. The new National Policy on Biofuels had a target of 20 per cent blending of ethanol in petrol and 5 per cent blending of biodiesel in diesel by 2030.
This was to be achieved by increasing production using second generation bio-refineries and developing new feedstock for biofuels. It allowed the production of ethanol from damaged food grains like wheat and broken rice, which are unfit for human consumption.